Of course, this is my life, so I also sliced my arm open while exacting my rage on the innocent propellers of air. Tore my arm to shreds actually, making me have to use all those pathetic supplies Lainey had me buy at the store weeks ago, because she worried about me getting an infection. The supplies weren’t pathetic, I was.
Thursday. I was so angry that she was right. Everything she fucking said was right, which led me to punch a hole through the wall in the den.
Friday. I was back, face down on the couch. Groaning. I missed following her. I missed seeing her smile and hearing her snappy quick comebacks.
Life had made me really good at being a douche. Since I was sixteen, I’d been on a one-way track to self-destruction, mowing down everyone in my path. Then I met Lainey, who pulled me out of myself and made me feel normal for a few moments in my life, and I had lost it right in front of her.
She must have felt as if she was pulling my teeth out, trying to get me to make small talk at the diner. My brain was in a fog being so near her. The entirety of the night was spent with me talking myself from sliding my splayed fingers up the back of her neck, fisting them through that silky hair and pressing my lips to hers, savagely. What she said in my truck…how could she know the things inside me? Thinking that someone felt the same as me, understood me, made me want to fuck her and to over indulge myself in her flesh. The need overwhelmed me. There was an overbearing realness to her that lay heavy on my chest, and if I never saw her again, I swore I would succumb to its weight.
Thrumming softly into my ears, the raspy vocals and music of Simple Kind of Man by Shinedown, held back the phantasms of my horrors, and showed me only my bitter longing to listen to the cadence of Lainey’s soft calm voice and taste the sweetness of her soft pink lips. No matter how badly it was going to hurt, I didn’t want to be anywhere but with Lainey. Let her crush me. Let her destroy me. There wasn’t much good left of me, but I wanted her to take every last bit.
In those green eyes, yelling at me, holding up that metaphorical mirror that showed me some of my actions against her, I knew I’d come undone. And she was fucking right; I couldn’t do this anymore. I didn’t want to. I knew the true impact of my trauma was me just shutting myself down, quitting life. I stayed up all night, thinking and rethinking if I should ever see her again. Questioning if I could be capable of some sort of normal to offer her. ‘Redefine normal’ was what she told me, such innocent, brilliant words. I stayed up throughout the entire next day and watched the sun sluggishly pass through the sky, as if it was toying with me and wasting and playing with my time.
Just to torment myself, when the sun finally set, I went to Dylan’s bar.
One of the guys from the trailer park was giving himself an impromptu bachelor party, bringing along a rowdy crowd of cave dwellers that had my panic set to high alert.
I wanted to haul Lainey over my shoulder and carry her out of the crowd. The whole time I was watching her as I stood by the entrance, talking myself into going in, she didn’t smile at all.
Not even once.
I clenched my jaw and stalked toward Dylan’s office, slamming the door behind me, which caused Bree to fall flat on her ass, right off the desk where she was playing a full contact game of tonsil hockey with my brother. “Coitus Interruptus!” I screamed. “Stop and put your hands where I can see them.”
Bree stumbled awkwardly to her feet and walked out giggling. “Hello to you too, Kade. Coitus Interruptus, that’s hysterical.”
Without a thought, I started wearing a hole into my brother’s rug, as he stood there, hands on hips, waiting for me to talk. I felt like a cloud of smoke, just billowing into nothing. My lungs felt like they were tightening and drying out, and I couldn’t inhale enough air. My throat was tight and dry when I finally spit out the words, “I want her.”
“She’s sort of crazy about me, mate. And personally, I don’t think you’d ever stand a chance with your flagrantly charming demeanor,” he chuckled.
“I want Lainey, you dolt.” He was just ridiculous thinking I could want the blonde perky one. She was…well, perky.
“Kade, mate. I think the girl has been through enough hell, okay? Don’t drag her through yours,” Dylan replied.
“I can’t stay away from her,” I growled, raking my hand across my forehead and back through my hair.
He looked me dead in the eyes, “Try a bit harder, Kade. It’s what you’re best at.”
I covered my face with my hands and then ripped them violently through my hair again. “I don’t want to be best at that. I’m sorry, Dylan. I’m sorry for everything I’ve ever put you through.”
“What about someone like Natalie?” He asked.
Jerking my head back, I gagged in his direction, almost literally vomiting on him. “She’s fuckable, not datable. There’s a huge difference. I’m tired of fucking women that I have to hide who I really am and what horror lives inside me. I want someone to know me, just fucking understand me, and God…Dylan, I can swear when she looks at me, I think maybe…I don’t know, that maybe she does. The only thing I know right now, is that when she’s near me, I don’t think of the blood that’s been spilled in a classroom, but the rush of pulse from the flush of her cheeks when I look at her.”
“What’s that even fucking mean?” He asked.
I ignored the question. “She said I had PTSD.”
“You do, Kade, face up to it. Get fucking help. I miss my brother.”
“I want her,” I growled again, as if I was sporting to have a tantrum.
Dylan leaned forward, talking low, eyes shifting behind me to see the door. “You didn’t see her when she first came here, mate. She could barely walk straight. Bree had a fat lip and a bruise across her face, but Lainey… Lainey needed a hospital and wouldn’t go to one, and it didn’t seem like it was because she was afraid of doctors, Kade. I think she’s afraid of the police. I think something is wrong…the way Bree talks about her…did you know Bree and Lainey’s brother were engaged…” he whispered. He pointed his finger at me. “I’m not going to let you hurt her, because the only reason Bree is here is because Lainey is here, and I’m not ready to give Bree up yet, mate.”
“Dylan, don’t go getting your silk panties in a twist, yeah? I know she has some sort of wooly situation she’s hiding from, but I want her and I have no clue how to deal with any of these feelings. If anyone is going to be getting hurt, it’s going to be me.”
“You’re a real dick sometimes. You’re just going to bring her down,” he whispered, shaking his head.
“Hey, I lived through attempted murder and a massacre, cut me some slack. Aren’t I supposed to get like a ‘get out of jail’ card for it, or some sort of sympathy card?” I smiled pathetically.
His eyes widened from the carefree lightness of my plea, “Kade, you’re cracking jokes about it? This girl is really changing you, isn’t she?”
“She’s so different. She doesn’t have to get naked to get a man’s attention. She just has to walk in a room, glide in with her watery movements, and when she speaks, it’s of substance. You fucking want, no…you need to listen. She’s profound. It’s ruthless on my soul. She is a woman who still blushes when a man looks at her. She’s not a child, you know she’s lived some sort of difficult life and the mystery of her is breaking me. I want her to crack and break in my hands. I want to open her up and gut her.”